The Brussels buses network is complementary to the rail network in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

, which consists of

trams A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport ar ...

trains In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...

, and metro trains. Brussels buses are operated by

STIB/MIVB The Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company (french: Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles or ; nl, Maatschappij voor het Intercommunaal Vervoer te Brussel or ) is the local public transport operator in Brussels, Belgium. It is ...

, the local public transport company. It has 50 bus routes and 11 night routes, which run on Friday and Saturday night. Some buses from

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

transport company

De Lijn Vlaamse Vervoersmaatschappij De Lijn (English: Flemish transport company ''De Lijn''), usually known as De Lijn (, "The Line"), is a company run by the Flemish government in Belgium to provide public transportation with about 2240 buses and 399 tr ...

and Walloon transport company TEC also serve Brussels but are not part of the same bus system.

History

The first motor buses were used in Brussels in 1907, with one route connecting the

Brussels Stock Exchange The Brussels Stock Exchange (french: Bourse de Bruxelles, nl, Beurs van Brussel), abbreviated to BSE, was founded in Brussels, Belgium, by decree of Napoleon in 1801. In 2002, the BSE merged with the Amsterdam, Lisbon and Paris stock exchange ...

to the

Ixelles (French, ) or ( Dutch, ), is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located to the south-east of Brussels' city centre, it is geographically bisected by the City of Brussels. It is also bordered by the munic ...

town hall. It was then stopped in 1913. Other buses were set in service from 1920 on, and in 1926 ''Les Autobus Bruxellois'', a bus company, was founded to operate the bus network. In 1955, one year after the STIB was founded, it took over ''Les Autobus Bruxellois'' and operated the bus network, made of 3 bus routes and 1

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or trol ...

route. The STIB expanded the network and in 1964, it was 185 km long. The rolling stock was renewed in 1972 and in 1991, with a new yellow livery. In 2003, the STIB tested its first night bus route named N71
[

History

Current bus routes

References

External links